Sunday, 20 January 2013

greetings all from a snow covered london , been a while since i did the blog thing but here goes ( i try not to rant )
after some consideration i have decided to go forward with a idea for the new swayzak album , its been a long soul searching journey but i think now i have found a possible way . the reason its hard is i dont want to give a record label 80% of the meagre income anymore ......as hunter thompson says "pimps and thieves" . this is the main reason there has been little swayzak output since 2007 . (end of rant)

in 2011 my long time partner james taylor decided to call it a day , for whatever reason (possibly me) sad but what we started as a fun thing in 1997 became somewhat a monster , fall outs , money problems and distance all became issues . He now works alone as lugano fell, his new album is really interesting and as far away from dance music as you can get , the antithesis of the club culture , but club culture is not where set ourselves to be , we just ended up there ! we were never djs at the start , personally i really enjoy djing now but back then it was hard work :( as you may have heard !

in 2012 a reinvention s_w_z_k still the same but heavier designed for the dark clubs we had been inhabiting of recent tresor visits . james and i started but as he quit i had no idea what to do where to go so a nice chap at phonica mr vangelis gave it a listen and said it would be good for ostgut ton the cool berlin label of berghain , but as i am too shy to approach them , so i approached a contact now at tresor paulo who is in the process of revitalizing the label . the album i found hard to finish and asked my great friend mr paul richard davis to become involved and share the spoils .after recording the majority in london we spent a few days in his berlin hideout to finish the album and then walked down the canal to dubplates to master . 4 hours later it was done and we were very happy with the results! our handful of live shows tresor , fabric , red gallery ,propaganda have all been pretty amazing so we will continue this in 2013 but the gigs are few and far between and it seems the demand is still s_w_a_y_z_a_k . i have since taken a job in a bike shop to keep myself sane :) from pumping house to pumping tyres......

at the end of 2012 i read about this crowdfunding thing ,one of those cool american ideas, sounds cool looks cool etc. and now as 2013 begins the idea of crowdfunding a new album seems to me like a wonderful idea , a great way forward , but how much can we raise , should we raise , is this musical begging ? you fund the music and we put our heart and soul into the production . do you want another swayzak album ? does it sound a good deal ?

only a idea thus far and if you follow facebook/swayzak you will see me intermittently posting rants and raves about music . we are never sure of our popularity but with near 15,000 likes and back in the myspace days 25,000 friends it seems we have a reasonable following to make this happen ?

the returns to investors :
small investment = digital download album
next investment = cd album
next = vinyl album autographed
next = teeshirt / sweatshirt + album
next = photobook + teeshirt + album
next = gig guest lists + teeshirt + album
next = remix / song writing / production course + all the above
largest investment = private gig / house / club /+ all the above

something like this based on your investment , seems good ? as the investment goes up you will get a more ellaborate package delivered to your door .

production will be done by myself (mr d brown) and mr r davis , will be in home studios in london and berlin , some input in bologna (francesco brini long time collaborator) we will be looking to work fast as possible and cost efficient , but not sparing on the quality of the music , it must come from the heart and go to the head !
main costs will be small equipment budget / mastering costs and manufacturing costs , if we get other vocalists involved payment to them , but am not sure if we will get any ........